


The Bells of Notre Dame

by wanderingstoryteller



Series: From a Distance [2]
Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Current News, Dragons, F/F, Notre Dame - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-19
Updated: 2019-04-19
Packaged: 2020-01-16 07:58:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,363
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18517234
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wanderingstoryteller/pseuds/wanderingstoryteller
Summary: The Doctor and her companions were enjoying a rare peaceful afternoon at a little cafe on the banks of the Seine when they saw the smoke. The next thing they knew they were rushing to rescue a clutch of time dragon eggs.





	The Bells of Notre Dame

**Author's Note:**

> I've decided to expand my earlier fic "From a distance," into a series of short ficlets of the Doctor and Team TARDIS dealing with or witnessing current events.

The Doctor and her companions were enjoying a rare peaceful afternoon at a little cafe on the banks of the Seine. It had been Graham’s turn to choose where they went and he’d wanted to go Paris. Not past Paris, not future Paris, not alternate universe Paris, just Paris. It was on his bucket list and he was more than happy to have the TARDIS handle all difficulty of translating french. He’d taken it for years in school and remembered absolutely none of it beyond that he liked the sound.

For once no adventures presented themselves. They went to the Louvre and suffered nothing worse than sore feet. They picnicked close to the Eiffel Tower and Yaz and the Doctor may or may not have reenacted a scene from a Mary Kate and Ashley movie involving fencing with baguettes.

Ryan recognized the reference, Graham obviously did not. The Doctor was also confused but she was always up for any sort of pretend fight involving food. She had on a past adventure proven herself to be a dead eye shot with a spoon and some peas.

They spent the afternoon exploring the catacombs. Yaz had really thought they were tempting fate going into an undergone set of tunnels full of bones but the universe simply allowed them a pleasant two hours on a guided tour. After that they were all as exhausted as if they’d been running all day. Being tourists, actual tourists, was rather tiring.

They had just settled down at a nice cafe for an early dinner when Ryan saw the smoke. “Doctor look, what is that.”

The Doctor was on her feet in an instant. Her sudden excitement got the attention of everyone else at the small riverside cafe.

“It’s Notre Dame, the cathedral, oh god the smoke is coming from the cathedral,” cried an old woman.

The Doctor frowned, scrunching up her nose, “Drat, it’s today then. I could have sworn it was a decade from now.” Then her eyes got huge. “Oh no. The time dragon eggs, the wee baby time dragons. We’ve got to save them!”

She was instantly in motion, her white coat flapping in the wind behind her. Her companions fell in step. She was a woman who could really move when she wanted to. They were soon racing across the Rue de la Cité.

“What dragons?” yelled Yaz after her lover.

“The eggs under the relic box that holds Saint Florian’s cloak.”

“Can’t dragons handle fire?” gasped Graham, struggling to keep up.

“Only adults, not hatchlings or eggs.”

When they reached the cathedral, all was in chaos. Tourists streamed away to the safety of the other side of the river as emergency workers rushed the opposite direction, desperate to stop the flames from destroying the Grand Old Lady of Paris.

Police did try to stop the Doctor. She flashed her sonic paper at them. Yaz had no idea what it must have said to convince them to let a woman into a burning church but they got out of their way.

They rushed past what appeared to be a human chain of firefighters rapidly working to get relics out of the church. Graham could have sworn her saw the Crown of Thorns go past. The air was heavy with smoke and they were all coughing, although they’d barely made it a hundred feet into the cathedral.

The Doctor headed straight for a small side chapel. Ignoring the beautiful red cloak laid out within a glass and gold reliquary box he buzzed her sonic at the lower part of the gilded cabinet. It popped open and she dragged out a huge wooden box filled with what appeared to be old rags. It looked far too heavy for them to carry out.

There was a terrible crashing sound as something above them collapsed, mercifully, whatever it was, it didn’t fall on them or anyone still in the building.

“Doctor! I think the ceiling is starting to fall. We have to go.” Yaz was ready to drag the Time Lady out if she had to.

The Doctor was already lifting a huge round golden orb with a cross on it out of the box. “Take her.”

Ryan did. It was incredibly heavy.

Three more globus crucigers followed. Eggs safely in their arms, the Doctor led them back out. Anyone watching would have surely thought they were stealing precious relics but no one stopped them. They made it all the way to Square René Viviani park, back across the river, before they all slumped onto the grass coughing.

They set the eggs on the ground and the Doctor laid on her side, pressing her ear against each in turn.

“They’re frightened but alright.”

No sooner had she said that then suddenly a huge wave of flames and smoke rose from the cathedral. “Oh god,” murmured Graham. “One of the spires has fallen.”

The Doctor barely heard him. Instead she had started arguing with one of the eggs. “No, little one. Truly you are safe. Please, don’t come out. It’s too soon.”

The creature inside the golden sphere didn't seem to heed her because the entire orb began to shake. A moment later a crack appeared. White shell showed beneath gold paint as a tiny red lizard poked its muzzle through.

With incredible gentleness, the Doctor helped pull back the shell so that the tiny creature could emerge. It said something about what a terrible moment it was for Paris, that although plenty of people were standing nearby, no one seemed to have noticed the birth of a dragon. All of their eyes were on the burning cathedral.

“Hello little one welcome to the universe,” murmured the Doctor. Her eyes shone with wonder as she turned to Yaz. “Hold out your hands. She need somewhere warm to go.”  

The fingerling dragon was perfectly formed from her gossamer wings to her spiked tail. She fell into Yaz’s hands, still damp with fluids from the eggs. Yaz’s heart tightened the way it had the first time she held a cousin’s half day old daughter. She cupped her hands to protect the little dragon and held her closer to her chest.

The damn hatchling promptly crawled down the neck of her shirt. Yaz’s shock was only slightly equaled by her deep feeling of awkwardness as the baby dragon settled comfortably into the top part of her bra, as if the tiny winged lizard were a cellphone she’d shoved there.

“They can’t handle fire but they have to stay warm,” the Doctor explained, lip quirking in amusement.

“Ah,” Of all the things Yaz had expected out of life, having a baby dragon in her shirt had not been among them. Suddenly Graham made another pained sound. The air was filled with a terrible crashing sound. “Another spire’s gone. Doctor, can’t we do something? It’s Notre Bloody Dame, we can’t just let it burn can we? Grace had a coffee table book full of pictures of it.”

“I’m sorry Graham, it’s a fixed point in time.”

“But it’s big and important,” said Ryan. “It was in Assassin's Creed and everything.”

The Doctor began to gather up the broken egg shells in a handkerchief she produced from her coat. “It is important to the people of Paris and they do everything they can. They save the two front towers. They save most of the relics and art and they do it without loosing a single life. They rebuild.”

Her words were a small consolation to Graham as he watched a cathedral so much older than himself burn. He’d meant to take Grace there and he never had. He’d meant to go there himself and now it was too late. Even if they rebuilt it, it might still be too late for him. Then he remembered he was friends with someone who owned a time machine.

“Will you take me to see it after it is restored?”

“Of course,” promised the Doctor. “Let’s just see to these little ones first.”

Delivering the newborn dragon proved easy enough. They hopped through time and space to take her to her mother, a huge scaly red creature the size of a house. The baby dragon eagerly abandoned Yaz’s bra to go hide beneath the warmth of her mother’s wings.

The dragon shifted just enough to welcome her offspring, “Hello daughter of mine, I think I shall name you Fafnir.” She made no sound when she spoke and yet her words echoed in Yaz’s head as deep as the feeling of Morgan Freeman’s voice. Oddly enough, the mother dragon showed no interest in reclaiming the remaining three eggs. “Why did you bring them back back to me? I cannot care for them here. Find them a new temple where they may finish growing seeped in the power of human faith.”

With that she seemed to dismiss them and curled up into a large red ball, rather like a cat on her mountain cave ledge.

They went back to the TARDIS with the eggs.

“What was she on about?” asked Graham as their ship hopped away with a wheezing sound.

“Time dragon eggs incubate in the warmth of belief the way chicks do in the warmth of a hen’s tail feathers,” explained the Doctor. “Time dragons actually tend to be atheists so they have to leave their eggs in other species temples to gestate. A past regeneration of mine helped that dragon put her eggs in Notre Dame when it was newly built.”

“So do we need to take them to Saint Paul’s now then?” asked Graham.

The Doctor frowned. “Nah, there are already eggs there. You really can’t have more than a single clutch in one place and they take a thousand years to incubate, at this point there are some stashed in pretty much every older house of worship on earth.” Suddenly she snapped her fingers. “What about your mosque Yaz.”

“My what?”

“Your mosque. It seemed a good place. The people there helped us care for those kittens we rescued from the wall. That kind of faith and kindness together is very good for growing dragons.”

“I guess, I mean the building has only been a mosque for like ten years. Everyone seems pretty happy there now, but what if they move at some point?”

“We’ll move the eggs.”

“And when they hatch?” Yaz suddenly had a mental image of the Doctor rushing in during Friday afternoon prayers to retrieve a hatching dragon. Considering the advanced age of much of the congregation, they might not actually notice.

“Don’t worry, I’ll come fetch them before then.”

So they went to Yaz’s mosque. Sheikh Mirza was happy to see them as he was still under the mistaken impression that the Doctor was a woman from the council. He talked animatedly about his cats and the mosques various plumbing issues with the Doctor and Yaz, while Graham and Ryan settled in the eggs under the guise of installing a new extra electrical box. In general no one ever messed with a nondescript metal box on the inner wall of a building.

That done, before any of them could collapse from the day, the Doctor made good on her promise and took Graham to see the restored Notre Dame. The cathedral was indeed still a very fine lady after the repairs were done.

The Doctor slipped them in late at night when no one was there. Graham very quietly walked the length and breadth of the cathedral taking in everything, including the rose windows, that had all come through the fire whole.

Some days and especially some nights, he felt Grace’s absence more deeply. He was surprised when Ryan laid a hand on his shoulder. “Is that the window Gran was always on about?”

“Yea, I think so.”

“Do you remember what anything on it means.”

“No, but I brought a tourist guide.”

Together they walked through the cathedral, over eight hundred years of history surrounding them.

Yaz and the Doctor hung a bit back, giving the grandfather and grandson time to bond. Yaz slipped an arm through the Time Lady’s. “I can’t believe we just watched this place burn. There’s nothing but scorch marks now.”

The Doctor looked about and then tilted her head up. “The ceilings is different. There are steel supports hidden up there behind the stone. It’s sturdier at least.”

Yaz didn’t care much about that. “My parents came here on their honeymoon. I grew up looking at a photo of them young and happy on the steps of this place. I’ve always wanted to come here. For years and years my dad promised we’d come to Paris for a holiday. There was just never the money. The farthest they ever took me was Brighton.”

“Brighton is nice.”

“It’s no Paris though, especially to a young girl. Every year I asked my dad and every year he had to tell me we couldn’t and now looking back I know how much that cost him.” She leaned against the Time Lady as she walked. “When the dust has settled, I want to bring them to visit Paris, my family I mean. I want you to come too.”

The Doctor froze in her step. “You want to use the TARDIS?”

“No, the Eurostar. I’ve enough set aside from my wages for the train tickets and to rent a small flat for a couple days.”

“Wait, are you asking me on a family vacation?”

“Yes, you're my girlfriend. You’re supposed to come on that kind of thing now. That is, if you want to.” Yaz didn’t know why saying that left her utterly breathless but it did.

The Doctor pulled her into her arms. “My brilliant Yaz, I think that is the craziest and most wonderful plan you have ever come up with.”

“You’ll come then?”

“Of course.”

“Even if my sister is brat, my mom is nosy, and my dad is well, my dad?”

“Yea even then.”

“I love you so damn much.”

“Good, I love you too.”

And they embraced and kissed in the beating heart of Paris surrounded by cold stone full of so many human memories and hopes.


End file.
